Reconsider
by tastewithouttalent
Summary: "Shizuo realizes, later, that he should have suspected some kind of plan." Izaya gets the upper hand in a conversation and Shizuo reconsiders some things he has taken for granted.


Shizuo realizes, later, that he should have suspected some kind of plan.

It's Izaya, after all. Izaya _always_ has a plan, and always more convoluted and dangerous than Shizuo can ever guess at. It's better, Shizuo's learned, to deal with the threat Izaya presents right away before whatever plots the other can muster can get off the ground, before Izaya can even get traction on the unpredictable attacks he offers if Shizuo moves too slowly or holds still for too long.

That's what he's doing today, too. Shizuo caught a glimpse of Izaya out of the corner of his eye at a distance of two or three blocks, his attention pulled by the familiar flicker of an unseasonably dark coat in the hint of a summer breeze, and he had moved even before he opened his mouth to give voice to the " _Izaya-kun_ " that spilled from his chest with all the involuntary force of learned reflex. Izaya had turned as soon as Shizuo spoke, his whole stance shifting backwards in the first instinctive retreat, but Shizuo was all but on top of him already; his first punch had come so close to the other's face Shizuo could feel the soft of dark hair grazing his knuckles as Izaya twisted sideways and out of the arc of the other's blow. Shizuo followed up the first swing with a second, without waiting to give Izaya a chance to collect himself, and Izaya had stumbled backwards with uncharacteristic clumsiness, like he was struggling to find his footing or as if Shizuo's unexpected appearance had honestly caught him off-guard as it so rarely does. The thought made Shizuo's pulse speed, coursed a fresh surge of adrenaline through all his body, and when Izaya had twisted on a heel and taken off down the street Shizuo followed with a grin pulling at his mouth and the possibility of long-awaited satisfaction hot in his veins. He can almost imagine the soft of Izaya's coat under the grip of his fingers, can almost see those crimson eyes going wide with startled surrender as Shizuo finally, _finally_ concludes a chase that has spanned full years of his life. The thought steals his breath, and speeds his steps, and then he rounds the corner Izaya turned down and there's the shadows of the side street, and the high wall of a deadend, and Izaya standing breathless in front of the barrier. It's too high for him to leap, too smooth to provide any handholds for his usual absurd escape maneuvers; Shizuo wonders, for a moment, if Izaya won't manage one of his typical unbelievable escapes anyway, but as he steps forward and down the street Izaya falls backwards, pressing his shoulders hard against the wall at his back in a motion too frightened to be anything but the actions of a cornered man.

Shizuo can feel the satisfaction of the moment radiate out into his body, can feel the weight of it settle in his muscles and undo the tension in his shoulders and knock his stride into the languid motion of a predator approaching some helpless prey finally too trapped to run any further. And Izaya looks the part, with his fingers catching against the wall at his back instead of holding to the handle of a switchblade and his eyes fixed on Shizuo's; Shizuo can see Izaya tense at the other's grin, can see him almost flinch at the drawling "I-za-ya-kun" that rolls over Shizuo's tongue like a wave breaking against a long-sought-after shore. Shizuo feels warm, feels radiant; anticipation is hot in every line of his body, like sunlight is cradling itself into his joints to melt them to easy grace, and his smile is just as easy, pulling at his mouth with a force he couldn't hold back if he cared to try. "I'm going to _kill_ you."

Izaya swallows. It's strange, how clearly Shizuo can see the motion, how precise the action looks in the other's throat; it's like all the purring adrenaline in Shizuo's veins has sharpened his attention instead of narrowing it, like with the red haze of fury surrendering to anticipation he can notice details around him he never saw before. Izaya's fingers are pressed hard to the wall, his knuckles angled sharp against the support; his shoulders are tipped back too, his whole body leaning away like he's trying to force himself bodily through the barrier and away from Shizuo. His eyes are wide, the color in them catching the light instead of shadows for the first time Shizuo can remember seeing, and his mouth is set, his lips pressed tight together instead of curling into the cut of his usual smirk. It's strange to see him like this, as if a complete stranger has borrowed all the recognizable details of Izaya's appearance but forgotten to imitate his manner; but it doesn't matter, it doesn't make a difference, Shizuo can _smell_ that this is really Izaya, can feel certainty in him like the blood coursing hot in his veins. His fingers curl into a fist, his whole arm tenses with the strain of a punch that has been waiting to land for months, years, an eternity; and then, just as he starts to lift his hand: "Wait," Izaya says, the word coming so fast and shaky that it stalls Shizuo's motion half-formed. "Wait, I have something I need to ask you."

Shizuo can feel the tension at his mouth fading, can feel his smile giving way to slack confusion instead. "What?"

"A question," Izaya says. He hasn't moved at all; his shoulders are still hard against the wall behind him, his fingers still tense at the concrete. "Are you listening?"

Shizuo frowns. He knows better than to let Izaya talk for any length of time - it's actions that give him the upper hand, not the words that Izaya uses like traps - but Izaya's staring at him, his eyes wide and mouth trembling, and the anticipation in Shizuo's veins is stalling, is giving way to unfamiliar uncertainty. "What is it?"

Izaya takes a breath. It sounds very loud in the too-small distance between their bodies. "Will you go on a date with me?"

Shizuo can't make sense of the other's words for a long, long moment. He's left staring blankly at Izaya in front of him, watching crimson eyes for a flicker of amusement, for a shimmer of laughter, for anything at all to indicate how he's meant to take this completely incoherent sentence. But Izaya just stares right back at him, his gaze steady and mouth set, and Shizuo can't find any trace of mockery in the other's expression. It would be easier if he could see through the shape of whatever insane game Izaya is playing now, or if he had the determination to hit him anyway and answer the incomprehensible question with the straightforward relief of violence. But he can't, and he doesn't, and in the end his arm falls back to his side, his fingers easing from the fist he made of them as he stares confusion at Izaya. " _What_?"

"A date," Izaya repeats. He still hasn't moved at all; Shizuo half-expected a surge of movement, had wondered if this was just to confuse him enough to buy Izaya the space and time to draw his knife and muster a counterattack. But Izaya remains still against the wall, his focus remains fixed on Shizuo's face, and if his shoulders are less tense he's making no effort to transition into the fluid elegance of violence from his slouch against the support at his back. "We'll call a truce for a few hours and spend them together, without trying to kill each other."

Shizuo snorts. "No. No way. You'd try to stab me as soon as I let my guard down."

Izaya raises an eyebrow. "You're as likely to sucker punch me." He tips his head sideways against the wall; his hair shifts to fall over his eyes. "I'm willing to take the risk. Are you too scared to meet me halfway?"

Shizuo growls irritation. "I'm not _scared_ , you-"

"Good," Izaya says, snapping the word with a speed that slices Shizuo's protest off cleanly mid-sentence. "I'll see you Thursday afternoon." And he moves at once, unfolding from the wall and slipping sideways with mercurial grace that carries him past Shizuo's shoulders and out of reach in the span of heartbeats that it takes Shizuo to realize what's happening. Shizuo turns fast, reaching out instinctively to make a grab at Izaya's coat; but Izaya is faster, darting towards the corner to the main street while Shizuo is still trying to catch his balance.

"Nice chatting with you, Shizu-chan!" Izaya calls, pivoting on his heel at the entrance to the sidestreet and lifting his hand to wave. "See you in a few days!" Shizuo growls and lunges forward after him, " _Izaya-kun!_ " hot on his lips; but Izaya's gone, vanished out of sight by the time Shizuo rounds the corner with nothing but the echo of his laughter in Shizuo's ears to say he'd been here at all.

Shizuo spends the rest of the day trying to pick apart the confused tension in the back of his heart and tensing against his chest, but by the time the sunset is steering him back home he's found no more insight into what he's feeling than when he started.

If he didn't know better, he'd almost call the feeling anticipation.

* * *

"Really." Shizuo squints into the glare of sunlight off water, finally capitulating to raising a hand to shadow his eyes. "The beach. You wanted to go on a date to the _beach_."

Izaya heaves a put-upon sigh. "It _is_ the summer, Shizu-chan. Lots of people come to the beach in the summer, didn't you know?"

Shizuo cuts his eyes sideways to frown hard at Izaya. " _Lots of people_ isn't the same as _you_. I didn't know you ever came out in direct sunlight."

"Oh yes, a vampire joke, very funny." Izaya steps forward to take the lead across the white-bright sand of the beach before them. "We both know which of us is the monster here, Shizu-chan."

"You're going to burn," Shizuo tells him, not without some satisfaction in the idea. "You're going to look like a lobster."

Izaya glances back over his shoulder to give Shizuo an unimpressed look. "I do have sunscreen with me, you know." He shrugs off the bag he has over one shoulder and drops it to a clear span of sand before reaching for the hem of his black t-shirt and drawing it up over his head. "I'm not doomed to remain inside through the summer months just because of the threat of a little sun." His shirt inverts on itself and slides up across the shift of his shoulders as he moves; Shizuo can see his shoulderblades flexing just under the skin, sweeping out an arc of movement as Izaya tugs his shirt up over his head and tosses it to fall atop the bag. With his shirt off there's just the dark of his shorts to break up the smooth line of his waist leading down to his legs; Shizuo trails the curve with his gaze, his attention caught and held by sunlight on pale skin before Izaya shifts to drop forward onto his knees and reach for the zipper on his bag.

"I'll share if you ask nicely," he says without looking back at Shizuo standing behind him. "Though I admit I'd love to see if _you_ burn. You'd lose a lot of your intimidation factor all red and peeling, don't you think?" He rocks back on his heels and looks over his shoulder, his lips pulling onto a smirk as he holds up the bottle of sunscreen he's just retrieved from his bag. "Please, if you want to refuse my generosity, go right ahead."

Shizuo doesn't know what it is that does it. Maybe it's the way Izaya's head is tipped to the side, the way his mouth is pulling to a lopsided smirk that says he knows what Shizuo is going to do before he does it, that says everything Shizuo could imagine or attempt is already entirely captured in the span of Izaya's plans. Maybe it's the glow of the summer sunshine casting an oddly human flush across Izaya's bare shoulders and along the curve of his spine down the middle of his back. Maybe it's just impatience, just that Shizuo's restraint can only hold out so long when confronted with the temptation of Orihara Izaya right in front of him. Whatever the cause, he can feel his patience give way like a thread snapping in the back of his mind, can feel the tension of restraint going slack with the relief of surrender, and when he starts to smile that comes easy too, riding the wave of anticipation that hits him along with the first flare of familiar adrenaline in his veins.

" _Izaya-kun_ ," he growls, the effect of his voice only slightly impeded by the movement needed for him to strip his shirt up over his head and throw it carelessly aside. Izaya's lashes flutter, his focus flickering away as his smirk falls slack for a moment, but Shizuo has no intention of waiting for a response. "I'm going to-" and he's lunging for Izaya without bothering to finish the sentence, catching his arm around the other's waist and lifting him bodily off the sand in a single motion. Izaya yelps incoherent surprise and grabs to clutch desperately at Shizuo's shoulder in an attempt to steady himself; the sunscreen drops to the sand but Shizuo doesn't pause over the loss. He's moving instead, striding towards the ocean as he braces Izaya against his shoulder where he's lifted him as he entirely ignores the other's struggles for freedom.

"Stop," Izaya protests. "Shizu-chan, put me _down_." He's shoving at Shizuo's shoulder and reaching up to pull at the other's hair, but Shizuo disregards this distraction as easily as the impact of Izaya kicking hard against his chest. "Shizu-chan." A little more frantic, now; Izaya has a hand braced against Shizuo's shoulder, has his fingers digging in hard against the other's skin. "What are you doing? We have a _truce_."

"I'm not fighting with you," Shizuo tells him as he makes it to the edge of the water lapping the sand to dampness. "I'm not even hurting you."

"Stop," Izaya snaps, his voice going shrill as he struggles to get a grip around Shizuo's neck. " _Shizu-chan_."

"What's wrong?" Shizuo purrs, splashing out into the ocean past his knees, until the cool water is lapping at the sun-heat clinging to his stomach. "Afraid of a little water?"

Izaya tenses against his shoulder. "Shizuo, _don't-_ " but Shizuo already is, shoving at his hold on Izaya's waist to break all the desperate force the other can muster to keep himself steady and push him off. There's a yelp of panic, Izaya's voice breaking to heights Shizuo has never heard from him before, and then an enormous splash as Izaya hits the surface of the water and goes under. Shizuo's left with droplets clinging to his hair and speckling across his chest and shoulders and a grin of triumph curving over his lips as he waits for Izaya to surface. The ripples give way to the incoming waves, the water smoothes itself back to calm; and there's no sign of a dark head, no sharp-voiced irritation stripped of threat by breathlessness. Shizuo's smile flickers, fades; and then amusement collapses entirely to worry as his mouth draws into a frown.

"Izaya-kun?"

* * *

"I cannot _believe_ you tried to drown me on our _date_."

"I was _not_ trying to drown you," Shizuo protests, feeling the words go slack and meaninglessness with repetition. "How could I have known you don't know how to swim? You never _told_ me."

"I knew _you_ could swim," Izaya informs him, half-turned away in his seat on the other side of the restaurant table. His hair is still damp at the ends and sticking just against the back of his neck, but he looks far better than he did by the time Shizuo pulled him above the surface of the water to cough and hack and sputter his way back into breathing air instead of seawater. "You used to go on trips to the beach with your family all the time in high school."

"Okay, see, and you know _too_ _much_ and it's just creepy," Shizuo says. "Why did you even suggest going there if you can't swim?"

"Swimming isn't the only thing people do at the beach, Shizu-chan," Izaya says without looking up from the menu he's been pointedly staring at for the last several minutes. "Some people enjoy more sedate activities than risking life and limb against the forces of nature."

"You're making it sound like some deadly undertaking," Shizuo tells him. "It's just swimming."

"Says the monster with superhuman strength." Izaya tosses his hair back from his face and recrosses his legs in the other direction. He's still staring at the menu and pursing his lips into a show of consideration, as if he is paying any attention at all to the options in front of him instead of the back-and-forth of their conversation. "You're not very good at considering the limitations of us mere mortals, Shizu-chan. It's no wonder this is the first date you've had since high school."

Shizuo's throat closes up on a cough of sudden shock. " _What_?" he gasps. "How did you know that?"

Izaya does lift his head from his menu then, enough to raise his chin and roll his eyes dramatically towards the ceiling. "I'm an _information broker_ ," he says. "I sell _information_." He turns his head to fix Shizuo with a flat stare, finally offering the eye contact he's been withholding as he snaps the menu in his hand shut as if to punctuate. "Your nonexistent love life is among the easier things for me to track."

 _Why_ , Shizuo thinks about asking. _Why would you bother? Who cares about who I am or am not dating?_

"Oh," is what he says instead. "I guess so." He looks down at the menu he cast onto the table unread when they first arrived and frowns at the name of the restaurant without bothering to read it. "What about you?"

"What _about_ me?" Izaya says. Shizuo can still feel the weight of Izaya's gaze on him. "Are you asking about the details of my personal life, Shizu-chan? I don't just give information away for free, I'd be out of a job if I did that."

Shizuo's scowl deepens. "Fine then, _don't_ tell me."

"So as payment, dinner is your treat," Izaya continues, closing his menu and tossing it across the table to land on top of Shizuo's. Shizuo looks up, as startled by Izaya's speech as by the motion, and Izaya meets his gaze with a level stare of his own. "As it happens, I've kept myself occupied with my work since graduation." He braces a hand against the table and catches his fingers against the edge of the menus to toy with the weight; the movement looks studied, a performance of unconcern rather than the emotion in truth. "It's been years since I spared the time to go out with someone."

"Until now," Shizuo says without thinking. Izaya's gaze flickers up to him from his attention on his fingers, his eyes dark enough that Shizuo can't get a read on them. Shizuo's breath catches in his throat for a moment, as if his chest has suddenly tightened underneath some invisible weight, and it takes him a moment before he can trust his voice enough to continue. "You're out with me right now."

Izaya's lashes shift. "That's true," he says. "You're as astute as ever, Shizu-chan."

They keep staring at each other for a moment. Izaya's mouth is softer than Shizuo thinks he's ever seen it before; there's no trace of the usual lopsided smirk or irritated frown that he knows so well from previous interactions, none of the usual bright-edged laughter or lilting taunts in Izaya's throat. There's just Izaya, with his eyes cast into darkness by the low lighting in the restaurant and his hair still clinging to his skin with the last drying damp of seawater, and in the end it's Shizuo who looks away first, who lets his gaze drop to the shift of Izaya's fingertips at the edge of the menus.

"Sorry." He clears his throat roughly, coughs it clear of what lingering tension remains. "I didn't know you couldn't swim."

Izaya huffs a sigh. "I know you didn't," he says. "It's okay, I hardly expect a protozoan like you to know how to swim yourself, much less to think if someone else could."

"Shut up," Shizuo growls, but when he looks up Izaya is turned in to face him again, his elbow braced on the table and his mouth tugging on a smile that brings out the shading of color from behind the dark of his eyes, and when he moves it's to kick against Shizuo's shin under the table.

The impact is hard enough that Shizuo can feel it run up his leg to his knee, but he doesn't flinch away; he figures a little bruising is probably only fair payback, after all.

* * *

"Well, that wasn't a _complete_ disaster," Izaya declares as they make their way down the sidewalk towards his apartment. "You only almost-killed me once, after all, that's better than I thought you would be able to manage, Shizu-chan."

"I'm _sorry_ ," Shizuo groans, tipping his head up to offer the frustration in his expression to the darkening sky, since Izaya doesn't seem to be paying the least attention to it. "Are you ever going to let that go?"

"Not ever," Izaya assures him. "It's too good of an opportunity to let slip by. The next time you decide to insist that _I'm_ the one with only a passing relationship to honesty, remember that _you're_ the one who betrayed the terms of our agreement."

"I pulled you back out," Shizuo points out, looking back down to consider the dark of Izaya's hair long-since dried from the wet of his unplanned dip. The very ends are tangling around each other, like the strands are trying to cling to the hint of a curl and tripping over themselves; it makes Izaya look a little softer, a little more disheveled and more human than Shizuo is used to seeing him. It looks good, he decides. "If I almost drowned you that means I also almost saved your life."

"Only because you put me in danger in the first place," Izaya informs him. "Which was categorically opposed to the terms of our agreement. I could have pulled a knife on you as soon as I stopped coughing up half the ocean and I would only have been matching the tone _you_ set."

"You didn't," Shizuo says, protesting for the habit of it without really thinking through his words. Then he realizes what he said, and blinks, and frowns down at Izaya next to him. " _Why_ didn't you?"

"Because I'm a better person than you, obviously." Izaya delivers this rebuttal instantly, as if he were just waiting for Shizuo to ask, and he's moving as soon as he finishes speaking, darting ahead on the sidewalk as if to resume their more usual mode of interaction with no warning at all. Shizuo's jaw tenses, adrenaline flickers to life in his veins, and he's just growling " _Izaya_ ," just taking a long stride forward to chase after the other, when Izaya catches a hand at the column of a front gate and pivots himself around it to turn off the main street. Shizuo is left to stumble to a halt, his surge of excitement giving way to startled confusion instead, and from the other side of the front gate Izaya's mouth twists onto a smirk that says his abrupt movement was as much a deliberate lure as anything else.

"I'm here," he declares, one hand still catching at the edge of the gate, and when Shizuo looks up it's true: the sleek front of Izaya's apartment complex is looming over them, plate glass windows catching and reflecting back the glint of the streetlights along the main walkway. He hadn't realized they had come so far already.

"Thank you for the date," Izaya tells him, his mouth twisting at the corner to give the words the appearance of mockery if not the sound. "Who would have thought we could spend an entire afternoon together without inflicting grievous bodily injury?"

Shizuo huffs. "I didn't."

"Yes," Izaya says. "I know." He's still smiling, his mouth still caught on that curve of amusement, but there's something behind his eyes, some shadowed-over focus that Shizuo can't get a proper read on. Izaya shifts his feet and tips his balance to the side to lean against the column of the gate; he makes the angle into something artistic, something inviting. Shizuo's skin prickles with electricity, as if the catch of the light at the color in Izaya's eyes is enough to shiver reciprocal sensation out into his veins as well. "Good thing I have a better grasp of our dynamic than you do."

"Yeah," Shizuo says, not really paying attention to the rhythm of the conversation. The afternoon is long past, the evening sliding over into night; Izaya is home, or as good as, there's nothing at all keeping Shizuo locked to the span of sidewalk where he's still standing. But Izaya's staring at him, his eyes holding to the shadows like they're trying to absorb the whole of the night at once, and Shizuo can feel the space between them going tense with expectation, with anticipation of something he can't quite frame to clarity even in the space of his own head. His heart is beating harder, speeding like it hasn't realized that the chase is over, that Izaya's not trying to escape and Shizuo's not trying to hit him; and Izaya is just standing still, gazing up at Shizuo like he's waiting for something Shizuo can't make sense of.

They stay like that for several seconds, with Shizuo's heart racing on incomprehensible adrenaline to make a few handful of breaths feel like long minutes of rising pressure. But he can't get a read on Izaya's gaze, can't make sense of the other's expression any better now than he ever has been able to, and if his body is telling him to take a swing or growl into a threat his mind is insisting the night isn't over, insisting that the truce yet holds, and so when he finally moves it's to take a deliberate inhale, to shake his head in a futile attempt to brush away the strain turning the space between them so electric.

"Okay," he says, rocking his weight back on his heels and grimacing at how much effort that one action takes. It's as if he's working against some magnetic field, some invisible current of habit telling him to lean in, to push for conflict and resolution instead of running, instead of moving back, why is he retreating, why is he moving _away_? "That's it, right?" He means it as a statement; there's no logic to the way his voice skips in the back of his throat, in the way the swing of sound veers his words to a sincere question.

Izaya huffs an exhale, his shoulders slumping into something like disappointment for a moment; Shizuo barely has time to see resignation settle into Izaya's stance before the other is bracing a hand at the support next to him and pushing himself to upright in a single fluid motion. It's a graceful action, made of as much elegance as if it's a practiced maneuver, and Shizuo can feel his whole body go tense with the expectation laid into him by habit, with the anticipation of the knife edge that always follows movement like that when Izaya is concerned. But there's no flash of metal, no arc of a blade slicing through the air, and when Izaya lifts his hands his fingers are relaxed, his hands open and unthreatening even as he steps easily over the gap between his body and Shizuo's.

"Honestly," he says, and then his fingers are catching against Shizuo's hair, his hand is sliding to press and curl against the back of the other's neck. "Don't you know how dates are supposed to end, Shizu-chan?" and he's rising up onto his toes to strip away the difference in their heights, and lifting his head, and his lips are pressing against Shizuo's mouth.

Izaya's lips are softer than Shizuo expected them to be. He's used to thinking of Izaya's mouth tense on a frown, or dragging into the sharp-angled weight of a smirk, or maybe open around the breathless pant of air at the end of a too-long chase. He never thought the other's mouth would be so soft, would be so warm, would fit so well against his. Izaya's fingers in his hair slide, trailing down against the strands to press against the back of Shizuo's head, to settle his thumb under the other's ear just over the thud of his pulse in his throat; and Shizuo doesn't pull away, Shizuo doesn't _want_ to pull away. His eyes are shutting, his hands are lifting from the slack weight they have been making at his sides, and then his palm is catching at the soft dark of Izaya's shirt, and his grip is bracing against the other's waist, and Izaya's curving in towards him, melting to his touch with a grace that undermines years of tension, that undoes all the violence of their history into a prelude to romance with a single elegant motion. Shizuo's hand comes up, his fingers brush against dark hair; and Izaya pulls away, drawing back as easily as he leaned in. For a moment Shizuo thinks he's going to slip away, is tightening his hold against the other in a desperate attempt to hold them still within the span of this moment for another breath; but Izaya's hands are still in his hair, and Izaya's still warm against the bracing hold of his grip, and when Shizuo blinks himself back to clarity Izaya's still in front of him, looking up through his lashes with shadowed-over focus to match the part of his lips over the pace of his breathing.

"There," he says, his tone a very near approximation of his usual offhand teasing. He licks against his mouth, running his tongue over the damp of his lips as if to collect himself, or maybe to taste the imprint of Shizuo's mouth against his. "The date is over." The corner of his mouth catches on tension, tugging into a flickering impression of his usual smirk that doesn't touch his eyes. "Good job, Shizu-chan. You kept to the terms of our agreement for a whole afternoon, it must have been exhausting."

Shizuo swallows, tries to work some kind of coherency back into his thoughts. "Izaya-kun."

"There's nothing holding you back now," Izaya says, his smile fading away again to leave his mouth flat and soft once more. "The truce was only for the duration of our date." His fingers tighten against Shizuo's hair, his touch drags against the back of Shizuo's neck. Shizuo can feel electricity run down the whole length of his spine from the friction. "You're free to resume trying to murder me at your leisure."

Shizuo takes a breath. His heart is pounding itself against his ribcage, his pulse is beating hard under Izaya's thumb. He can't draw his thoughts to clarity, can't make sense of any of the details of this moment except for one.

He shakes his head. "I don't want to."

Izaya's mouth curves, drawing up into the slow spread of a smile that catches at the corners of his eyes to sparkle color behind the shadow of his lashes. "What a coincidence," he says, his fingers slipping down through Shizuo's hair. "Something we agree on."

Shizuo can feel Izaya's fingertips slip across the back of his neck, can feel the other's touch skim just under the weight of his collar. His blood is fire in his veins, adrenaline is rushing through him like a tidal wave. "Izaya," he says, and then he's leaning in without waiting for a response, tightening the brace of his hand at the back of Izaya's head to hold the other still for the press of his mouth, for the deliberate drag of his lips across the other's. Izaya purrs something low and warm and satisfied against Shizuo's mouth, offering the vibration of sound to thrum between them, and Shizuo opens his mouth to lick against Izaya's lips, to chase down that almost-music humming against the inside of the other's mouth. He can feel Izaya start to smile, can feel the tension against the other's lips a moment before he parts them; and then there's just heat, damp warmth and electricity all down Shizuo's spine, and he's losing track of everything around them for his focus on the way Izaya feels against him, on the way Izaya tastes on his tongue, on the way Izaya's voice catches and hums against Shizuo's own throat. Shizuo's hands are tightening, his grip pressing against the back of Izaya's head and hard into the other's hip; and then Izaya is pulling away again, only managing an inch of movement before Shizuo's grip locks him in place and Shizuo's throat offers a growl of incoherent protest to this threatened loss.

"Calm down, Shizu-chan," Izaya says, as if this is likely to do anything at all to ease the strain in Shizuo's chest or the tension in his hold. "I just thought we might move somewhere a little less public." His gaze slides sideways over Shizuo's shoulder, as if to gesture to some imagined audience, but Shizuo doesn't turn around or look away. "If you don't want to end things here…" He looks back to Shizuo, his head tipping into an angle of suggestion to match the dark behind his eyes. "Come up for a cup of coffee?"

Shizuo has never drunk a full cup of coffee before in his life. He likes the smell of it, sure, likes the way he imagines it to taste; but the bitter weight of the flavor is something he's never found at all appealing.

"Yeah," he says. "Sounds good."

He thinks he might be able to benefit from giving more things than coffee a second chance.


End file.
